MORGAN Y. EVANS: It's funny, growing up I was more into punk and indie rock for a while but as a music fan could also really appreciate, like, Vivian Campbell's playing with Dio even if other people didn't think power metal was cool. Finally, I just unashamedly rocked metal all the time just as much as artsy, pussy bands, if not more! It seems like there is less a stigma these days to like only one style, except for closed-minded types. What do you think?

MICHAEL ANDREAS: Yeah man, it seems like every new band that puts out an album is inventing some new genre to be on the cutting edge of. I guess its not tough when you’re the only ones playing, like, jazz-sludge-easy-listening-core to be the best band in that genre. [laughing] But I mean, when I was young and started getting into music, my friends were listening to punk rock and I remember thinking “Oh, its punk rock…and roll,” and kind of relating everything back to being a part of the whole. So it’s all rock and roll really, [laughing] or its all metal now I guess. There are just so many different genres; you have to give new things a chance. A lot of my friends who read this are going to call me a hypocrite and say I don’t listen to a lot of new stuff, [laughing] but I’ll keep my ears open for something that really clicks, and I know what I like and what I usually don’t. I’m always willing to give things a shot. If you looked in my CD player now you’d see everything from Exodus to Miles Davis to Al DiMeola to Metal Church to Deep Purple.

MYE: Maniac was written and composed over a few years, right? You guys really spent time getting it right. It's a debut so you want it to come out and represent you with a bang, but is it intense now having this document stand as 6 years of your life? You must be psyched, but is it also overwhelming?

MA: It’s crazy! We have songs on the album that we’ve been playing for years and songs that we were finishing up as we were recording them. The title track, "Maniac", is one of the oldest songs on the CD, I remember pulling it together back in my junior year of high school. That’s about 7 years ago. And then there’s "Harvest" and "Mask", which we were still writing lyrics for and pulling together at the last minute. It’s not on purpose that it took this long to pull the album together. Lots of lineup changes over the years and other roadblocks kind of forced us to take our time. But it was worth the wait. I’m so proud to hold this CD in my hands and say, “This is it. We took our time. We gave it everything we had and it sounds great.” There are probably five or six tunes we used to play that we didn’t record, We just kind of outgrew them. We could have recorded an album like, three years ago, but it wouldn’t have been what Maniac is.

MYE: That's cool. My friends in the thrash/death metal band Cold War Survivor took a really long time on their record, too. But now, it is their monument to what they really stand for. It's a time and place. Tell me more about your formation. Where did you guys all grow up?

MA: All of us grew up right around NYC. We were all originally from Queens, although none of us met until high school, when me, Dan (guitar), and Kevin (bass) started playing together. We met up with Aaron (vocals) a couple of years later right after we graduated. The only one not still in Queens is Adam (drums), he was born in Sunnyside and moved out to Long Island when he was little. We met up with him in college, and started playing with him a couple of months later.

MYE: Michael, if you could, tell us how you got involved in heavy metal and what has made it so (bad pun alert) instrumental to your life?

MA: I was always around music growing up. My mom played folk guitar and had an acoustic around, so I would bang around on that thing and make all kinds of noise when I was little. I started to get into heavier music when I was around 13. I actually wanted to be a drummer! I didn’t get a drum set, but I got a guitar for Christmas back in 2000 and started playing some Metallica tunes and it just went from there. Getting into Testament was a huge thing for me, too. Alex Skolnick is still one of my biggest influences. I pulled some friends together to play some Megadeth and Metallica songs for a battle of the bands in high school, and getting on stage was incredible. I knew right then that music was going to be a huge part of my life. So here I am, still bangin’ on guitars and making all kinds of noise. [laughing]

MYE: I was reading some rag awhile ago and a critic said Reign In Blood by Slayer was already a high water mark for thrash and had been for years so why do people bother still playing that style. That seemed really short-sighted to me. Look at all the great thrash albums that have come out since!!

MA: Absolutely, man! How can you ignore The New Order or The Gathering, Rust In Peace, ...And Justice For All, or Overkill’s Horrorscope? So many amazing classics that came out after ‘86 that helped shape what thrash metal is. There’s no way just one band could describe it, let alone one album. And honestly, Reign In Blood is like 29 minutes of speed, there’s so much more to the equation. Slayer is definitely super thrashy, but that’s just one aspect there. How could you do without the killer grooves and super-creative, technical playing of bands like Megadeth and Testament? Or the incredible harmonic work of Heathen and the pure attitude of Overkill or Forbidden? They’re all thrash and they’re all different. Slayer might have had a hit with Reign In Blood, but that album was a starting point, not the epitome of metal that some people would call it.

MYE: Of course we're not discrediting it as amazing, but back to you guys. What is the story behind the album name Maniac? It sounds very "thrash" of course and straight up metal. It doesn't leave a lot to the imagination! [laughing] I was also wondering about the band name. Are you martyrs for metal doing it no matter the trends (but hopefully in it to win it)?

MA: Well, we always liked the concept behind the song "Maniac". It’s kind of about the business of medicine, how doctors can make a ton of money by throwing a pill at you every chance they get. And of course it’s got a dual meaning as the album title. There’s some pretty crazy music on there, [laughing] pretty varied. As far as the band name goes, we wanted something cool and simple, and the name Martyrd came to us. It ends up being an accurate description, because if you really want to follow your passion there’s a lot of yourself you have to give up. We’ve done some incredible things that I’m really proud of, but for every hour we spend on stage there are a hundred spent in practice, promoting, out selling tickets, bugging our friends to come out to shows, recording, doing graphics, and all the other BS that needs to get done. You have to sacrifice a lot of yourself.

MYE: Well, we appreciate you guys putting the hours in, man. What do you think about the current state of metal? It seems there is a real good conversation of sorts going on between bands of different types in metal these days, and bigger "new" bands in American metal like Lamb Of God's singer Randy Blythe appearing on Overkill albums and stuff like that. It's great.

MA: Metal’s in a good place I think, right now. We’ve got a lot of talented new bands coming around, and definitely players from bands like Lamb of God, Trivium, Children of Bodom, God Forbid, and plenty of others are bringing back that technical old school kind of feel, which I love. There was a while where everything was very simple, tuned down and chugged without much substance, but there are a lot of really great players now raising the bar. They’re really trying to bridge the gap from the old school legends to the new guys who are becoming legends in their own right. God Forbid went out on tour with Death Angel last year, I think Skolnick did something with Lamb of God, too, a couple of albums ago. It’s really mutually beneficial because it gives these new guys credibility to the old school crowd, and it exposes fans of the newer stuff to the classics.

MYE: Yngwie Malmsteen is obviously a legendary guitar player. Some people who don't like that type of super elaborate playing might not be fans, but he has undeniable skills and deserves respect. You guys are a very good metal band, but was it intimidating opening up for him or for bands you idolized like Testament? I mean, Alex Skolnick is another one. That guy's playing is just beyond words. "Envy Life" still freaks me out.

MA: Yeah, it’s usually “Sins of Omission” that gets me! Getting to play with Testament and meet Skolnick was really incredible. All of the guys from Testament were really cool, especially Greg Christian and Louie Clemente. I was actually very excited to get to play to Testament’s crowd, because so much of what I love about metal has come from them, and so there’s a lot of Testament influence in Martyrd. It was also a sold-out crowd that night. It was just a couple of days before they released their Formation Of Damnation, and everyone was buzzing with anticipation.

MYE: That's so dope. I wish I'd been there.

MA: For Yngwie, I had heard plenty of horror stories about Malmsteen before we got on stage with him, so I was a little nervous, but everything went fine. The Ripper was incredible singing with him, that was probably the highlight of the night for me hearing him sing “Never Die”. [laughing] I always appreciated Malmsteen’s skill, but Alex Skolnick is one of my idols. His work with the Alex Skolnick Trio and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra is also mind-blowing.

MYE: How do you guys usually handle the writing in the band and how would you say songs were refined over the years? The band has some real straight up thrash "attack" parts but also great use of melodic lead lines to add textures, like the intro to "Harvest" which is great.

MA: Thanks man! Sometimes someone will just do something spontaneous and we’ll go, “Whoa! We’re keeping that!” It used to be that I did most of the writing myself, and then Dan started bringing me riffs and we would organize songs together, and now it really varies. Everybody has their input; Aaron will come up with some incredible vocal melodies that just put a smile on my face. Adam will come up with a beat that might not gel with the original riff but is so cool that we’ll change the riffs around to match it. Kevin is always there throwing ideas at us. Jamming the songs out always gets us the best result.

MYE: You guys are playing with Twisted Sister coming up! That's got to be exciting. Tell me your favorite things about that band as a fan or what you are looking forward to most about that gig.

MA: I’m very excited! It’s a lot of work preparing for that show, but I’m sure it will be worth it once we get on stage. Everything up to that moment is work, but once the lights are out, that’s the easy part, that’s the payoff! Twisted Sister is incredible; they were one of those influential bands that set the groundwork for all of us today. Metal wouldn’t exist as it is without them and a handful of others—Judas Priest, Rainbow, Sabbath, Maiden—these guys were really ahead of their time with what they were playing. It’s a real honor to get on stage with someone as iconic as they are.

MYE: Is it hard playing this type of music in New York these days with so many hipster bands? I mean, metal is usually a more underground family anyway, even though it is gigantic worldwide.

MA: It is harder, until we actually start to play. A lot of booking guys around the city don’t want to deal with a metal band. They’d rather grab something trendy that they know will bring people in the door. And that just is what it is. Times are tough and you can’t blame them for going with a sure thing. But once we get on stage, they take us a lot more seriously than those guys playing a couple of standard chords wearing fedoras and scarves. [laughing] We definitely stand out compared to these guys, and playing around NYC and the northeast we’ve had the opportunity to play with a lot of other great metal bands. Just like you said, its an underground family, everybody’s in it together and word spreads quickly when there’s something new to be excited about.

MYE: What's going on with Nuclear Assault's John Connelly? You've been playing with him too, right Mike? How'd that develop, dude?

MA: John actually lives not far from me in New York, and we got together through a friend of mine who was playing drums for John’s new project, Blood Method. It’s kind of spotty, John’s a really busy guy and we won’t see each other for months at a time. We tend to pull things together real quick when we have a show or something coming up. John’s a great guy, and I grew up listening to Nuclear Assault, so it’s really crazy to find myself playing in a band with him.

MYE: What's on the horizon for the band musically and otherwise for this year?

MA: Well 2008 was a really big year for us. We played with a ton of big bands, Testament, Death Angel, Overkill, God Forbid, Malmsteen, The Misfits, and a whole bunch of others! We’ve got the Twisted Sister show coming up and we have some other dates scheduled up in Poughkeepsie and Pennsylvania. We also have a couple of other big things we’re working on pulling together. We’re working on getting the final copy of the album in stores ASAP, and we just wanna get out and play to as many people as we can. At the same time, we’ve got like five or six new songs ready for the next album and we are so amped to start playing those soon. We hope you guys are as excited to hear 'em as we are to play em! We know the fans are out there; we wanna let them know that metal is still alive and well.